Crypto Exchange Binance Adds Hong Kong Dollars to Fiat Gateway

Binance, one of the world’s foremost cryptocurrency exchanges, now allows deposits in Hong Kong dollars.

According to a Feb. 21 announcement, Binance now offers both deposits and withdrawals in Hong Kong dollars without deposit fees. After depositing Hong Kong dollars, users are free to spend them on cryptocurrency.

Deposits are enabled through a partnership between Binance and payment processor Epay. Users can deposit with a swift code, wire transfer, SEPA, Fasapay, PM and other e-currency deposit and withdraw services.

Binance is apparently trying to drive more liquidity into the cryptocurrency market. As Cointelegraph reported earlier this month, the exchange recently added 15 additional fiat currency options for Visa and Mastercard purchases on its platform. Shortly before this announcement, the firm also added Russian ruble pairs for its peer-to-peer trading platform.

All these efforts indicate that Binance is trying to attract people to join the cryptocurrency market during this new bull market. Still, the increase in user base is not without its consequences.

Unscheduled maintenance

Amid the recent increase in user volume, the platform has also recently reported technical difficulties. A report published earlier this month suggests that part of the performance issues that Binance users had to endure were caused by an unexpected surge in traffic. The paper reads:

“The difference between BTC at $10,000 this time around and the previous times is, there are a lot more users now. While this is a solid sign of strong recovery for the crypto market, it also puts on significant load for our systems.”

Recently Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance, expressed the idea that Bitcoin’s price has not yet adapted to the upcoming block reward halving and will increase even more. If he is right, the platform should expect traffic to further increase.